


Saitei de Saikou no Purgatorio

by Jar216



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Gen, Purgatory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28225884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jar216/pseuds/Jar216
Summary: Dia has a strange experience aboard a flight and finds herself on a strange island without any way to leave...
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Saitei de Saikou no Purgatorio

Dia’s eyes fluttered open as she felt the chair she was sitting on tremble. She quickly scanned her surroundings, still only barely conscious after her nap that had lasted much longer than intended. A glance to her right revealed what had woken her up, her flight was landing and the turbulence must have roused her. She looked out of the window next, admiring the beauty of the open ocean they were flying over. 

The sunlight reflecting off of the water began to strain her eyes, so Dia decided to look around the cabin. She couldn’t place any of the faces that she saw, in fact she couldn’t even place the person next to her, that Xanax she took pre flight must have really done a number on her. She knew it was supposed to calm her down for her flight, but she really didn’t anticipate the symptoms to be this bad. 

If she looked towards the cockpit she could see that there was no first class seating on this flight, strange, she had never flown coach before, what inspired her to do it now? She hadn’t the foggiest idea, most likely an effect of the Xanax once again, but when had it ever affected her like this? The pilot instructed them to prepare for landing over the intercom, Dia calmly grabbed onto the armrest of her seat and closed her eyes shut. She had never been one for flying, the thought of how much she would be panicking right now without the lasting effects of her anxiety medication put a bad taste in her mouth. She sighed to herself and looked down at her shoes, nervously tapping her foot as she waited for the plane to land.

The landing wasn’t rough at all, they touched town almost seamlessly and the aircraft came to a slow halt at the end of the runway. It was a small airport,hardly an airport at all and more of a runway with a small building next to it. Why was she here again? What was she doing on a flight and why was she alone? Dia had no clue. 

The plane was silent except for the captain announcing that passengers could begin exiting. Dia was near the back so she decided to wait her turn until she stood up and left, left to go where? She didn’t know, but she knew she had to get off this plane. She watched the other passengers as they stood up, everyone seemed to be a different age, nobody looked related to each other, no families, it confused her to no end.

She stood up hesitantly when it was her turn to leave, those behind her not seeming to care  how long she was taking. Some looked just as confused as her, others stared mindlessly out of the windows or towards the cockpit, the significant lack of life and energy was unsettling to her. Dia slowly made her way towards the front of the plane, where the exit was, she turned to thank the captain, something she had done since a young age, only to see that he wasn’t there. Was he still in the cockpit? However unconventional this was, Dia kept walkingand exited. 

The airport they landed in was in fact incredibly small, consisting of only one small room. she looked for where she could claim her luggage but there didn’t seem to be anywhere to go except outside. Her head was spinning, something was clearly wrong, why was she here? Why didn’t she recognize anyone? 

She reluctantly followed the man behind her, a line of about twenty-five or thirty people made its way out of the airport and into the sunlight. The light was bright, but it didn’t hurt her eyes, something about it was calming. Did she book a vacation at some sort of island resort getaway? If so, why was she in winter clothes? Was it even winter? Why would she go to an island in the winter? She had so many questions and couldn’t think of a way to answer any of them, she was at a complete loss. Even though it wasn’t hot she took off her jacket and wrapped it around her waist, it seemed too bright to dress this warm. 

Her legs seemed to move on their own, she wanted to stop and find the pilot, somehow ask whoever took her here where the hell she was. No matter how hard she tried to break ranks with the rest of them, she couldn’t get her legs to move. Dia didn’t know if it was fear, or something else.

The passengers of the flight walked together until they heard the plane start back up again, looking to the sky with weary eyes as it took off once more and flew towards the horizon. There wasn’t any other land in sight, they were stranded here, alone. Surprisingly, nobody panicked. Dia strangely felt at ease with her situation, something about this island just felt right. One second she was calm, the next she was questioning her sanity, why was she okay with this? 

She heard some commotion from behind her, it seems something was left for them by the entrance to the airport. Fishing rods, one for each of them. Of course, they would need to eat, and there didn’t seem to be any wildlife or vegetation on this island, at least whoever stranded them here was merciful. Dia and the rest of them took a rod and walked towards the shore. Well, Dia walked her own way, the group dispersed towards different sections on the beach, each of them taking a lone wolf approach. Dia thought to herself, “what am I supposed to do? I don’t know any of these people”. 

The only thing she could focus on was catching a fish, feeding herself, preserving her life, everything else could wait. She walked out towards the water before casting her line about 5 meters out into the shallow waters. Dia had only fished a few times in her life, but she found herself to be quite the apt fisherman, it was the family business after all, in a way. 

A few minutes passed, the sounds of the tides were the only thing audible to her at the moment. Nothing was biting, Dia couldn’t even see any fish from where she was standing. Maybe the deeper waters would serve better? Maybe she would catch something like a herring, or if she was lucky, a tuna, that would feed her for a while. She took off her shoes and socks and left them on the shore, stepping into the water and wading further into the ocean. 

The first thing that struck her was just how warm the water felt, she figured that was normal for an island such as this but it still was a pleasant surprise. The water felt comforting, welcoming, and safe, something that was certainly welcome in such a strange environment. She walked further from the shore to the point where the water reached just below her knees before casting her line again. The tide pulled at her legs and told her to keep walking forward, not seeing any reason not to, she obliged. Dia walked further and further from the shore, waiting very patiently for any fish to bite. The ocean was friendly, it was warm, she felt no need to leave it any time soon. 

Nothing was biting still, Dia would have been more frustrated if it weren’t for how nice the tide felt against her legs. She wasn’t that hungry, she had plenty of time to catch something. A thought did enter her mind though, if she couldn’t find anything by nightfall, would anyone share with her? She looked back towards the shore to see if anyone had found something yet, only to see more ocean. She must have gone too far out. She walked at a quickened pace against the pull of the slight current back the way she came, not wanting to go too far out and lose herself. 

After about thirty seconds of walking she still didn’t see any land, her heart rate picked up, getting turned around and losing the only land she had was not what she needed right now. She stood still and breathed for a moment, thinking about how to fix this. She tried every direction and couldn’t find an incline that would indicate a beach, the tide had settled completely and the water was almost still, she was surely lost. 

Wherever she was felt so unnatural, there was no ocean breeze, not a single fish was in sight and somehow the water was still only up to her knees no matter where she walked. She started to hyperventilate, tears slowly leaving her eyes as they darted left and right, searching for anything,  _ anything _ at all that would push her in the right direction. But there was nothing, nothing at all. Just Dia, her fishing rod with its line still cast and the soft sand beneath her feet. She was alone. 

In an act of desperation she looked to the sky, perhaps she could follow the setting sun and use that to keep a sense of direction as she tried to find land. Her eyes searched and searched, but there was no sun to be found. It simply wasn’t there, the one constant that all life on earth had was just, missing. It was clearly daytime, but when she looked to the sky that was all that she saw, sky. No clouds, no sun, no wind, no fish, no people, no tides, no anything.

Dia sat down in the water, dropping her head in her hands. Getting her clothes wet was the least of her worries at the moment, so she paid it no mind. Everything about this felt wrong, the water no longer felt welcoming, it felt imprisoning. She thought back to her friends, to Ruby, she needed to get home to them, somehow. She wondered if she’d ever see them again. She couldn’t remember a damn thing about how she got here, or why she was on a flight in the first place, or why wherever she was seemed to not be on earth. She had no answers, for one of the first times in her life she had no idea what to do, she was lost and alone with no foreseeable way out, and it horrified her. She had never felt more useless in her entire life, she could do absolutely nothing. In her life she had always been the one with answers, she had always been able to think her way out of a situation, but this was impossible. 

So, she cried into her hands for quite a while, any motivation she had to search for the beach was gone as the sheer confusion took over her brain. Everything she had learned up to this point, every memory she had was rendered pointless by how otherworldly this experience felt. Was this all a dream? Was she having a nightmare? No, it felt much too real, yet so impossible at the same time. Everyone else she was on the plane with had looked different from one another, it had seemed that nobody knew each other either, perhaps they were all in the same boat. Were they kidnapped? No, that didn’t explain the strange properties of her current location. 

Dia’s situation was beyond explainable, and she hated it. She lifted her head, looking out towards the horizon, her eyes focusing on the unmoving bobber at the end of her fishing rods line. Suddenly she came to a gruesome realization, it certainly explained her current situation, but it was hardly something she would ever want to believe. She opened her mouth, speaking for the first time that day. 

“Am… Am I dead?” The world around her started to darken, whatever source of light that wasn’t visible had vanished. The water quickly became much colder, Dia yelped and stood up in surprise. Was she not supposed to find that out? “Is this the afterlife?” The world grew angrier, darker, heavier somehow. She saw the bobber move in the distance, without thinking she grabbed her fishing rod and prepared to reel in a catch. She had hooked something, that’s for sure, what it could be was another mystery.

It pulled her forward quickly, and Dia followed, the splashing sounds that were made as she ran in the water were deafening. It was in fact, the only thing she could hear. The sounds followed her as she ran, getting louder with each step, was there more than one person making the sounds? She didn’t dare look behind her to check. The sounds became louder and louder as Dia ran faster and faster. 

The splashing turned into screaming, like dozens of voices crying out in a cacophony of fear and anguish, all coming from directly behind her. That was the only way she knew to describe it. She had never been so terrified in her life, the terror was unexplainable. She had only ever felt this way in nightmares, but again, this felt much more real. 

Suddenly, her foot got caught in the sand, her ankle twisting as she fell face first into the water. The screams were getting louder. Dia pushed herself back up as fast as she could and pushed off with her hurt foot, screaming in pain and almost falling over again. That was the first time she’d felt pain since she woke up on that plane, she made a quick note in her mind. Using that foot clearly wouldn’t work anymore, she used her one good leg to hop through the water and away from whatever was behind her. 

The bobber she was chasing started to glow, a bright white light emitted from it. Dia was almost relieved, the light gave her a path to follow. It was calling to her, somehow she knew that she had to follow it if she were to survive. 

She could only watch as it started to rise out of the water, floating slowly towards the sky. She couldn’t let it get away. The glowing white bobber had just floated a little above her head when she realized she needed to act now if she was going to catch up to it before it was too late. Throwing caution to the wind, she pushed off with both feet and lunged towards the bobber, right hand stuck out in an attempt to grab it. The pain in her ankle was immense, lifting it out of the water was a herculean task on its own, it had almost frozen over, feeling like cement. 

Miraculously, and much to the relief of Dia, she was able to grab on to the bobber. It lifted her further into the air as the water seemed to reach towards her in an attempt to grab her. The screams grew more distant. Dia looked behind her only to see a grotesque mangle of hands made of water clawing at her just barely out of reach. 

Her eyes wavered, it was getting harder and harder to keep them open, yet her grip on the bobber remained as tight as possible. She wanted to go to sleep so badly, what she had faced since she woke up was tougher than whatever she had gone through before, to put it lightly, her mind and body were exhausted. She was carried further away from the water still, whatever force was chasing her let out one final yell of defiance before dissipating completely. 

Everything around her seemed to quiet down. The ocean was no longer visible, she found herself surrounded completely by nothingness in every direction. The only visible thing to her was her own hand and the glowing bobber that kept rising, without it she surely wouldn’t have escaped whatever it was that was chasing her. 

Her eyes were on the verge of closing, the exhaustion became too much to bear for her. She allowed her eyes to close but grabbed the bobber with her other hand as well, she was not going to allow herself to let go, not after everything. She looked directly at it.

“Thank... you.” She lost consciousness. 

-

When Dia woke up she was greeted with one of the softest beds she had ever laid on. Her eyes fluttered open as she sat up, a warm and soft blanket fell off of her. She noticed that she had been changed into a white nightgown of some sort, it felt soft like a yukata and reminded her of home. 

Dia looked around her surroundings, she was in some sort of white room, a bedroom. Gilded furniture was laid around her bed, a bed that was covered in incredibly soft white sheets. The lighting in the room seemed to be natural, with a large window to her left that overlooked a familiar beach. 

She stood up, amazed that the pain in her ankle was already gone. After opening the window and soaking in a few seconds of the refreshing ocean breeze she turned back to her bed, a letter she hadn’t noticed was waiting on the pillow next to the one she woke up on. She took it in her hands and read it.

‘ _ Kurosawa Dia _

_ January 1 1999 - April 23 2017’ _

“So that’s it, huh?” She sat back down on her bed. She thought to herself about how she got here, she couldn’t exactly remember how she died, but she felt at peace. After a while she set the letter onto a nearby nightstand before laying back down onto the bed, she needed another nap, a long one. 

**Author's Note:**

> I was feeling weird and wrote a story about my fav in purgatory, lemme know if you enjoyed it pls. Inspired by the Divine Comedy and my dreams.


End file.
